Smoke from wildfires in Ontario and Minnesota has been lingering in Michigan skies. 

Some of it started on July 7, when lightning struck the woods of northern Minnesota. Those fires burned so hard the Forest Service shut the Boundary Waters completely. And the fires went both directions. One crossed into Canada, another crossed out of it, into Minnesota.

Meanwhile, four Republicans in Michigan’s delegation wrote to Canada’s prime minister last week, demanding Canada manage its forests better. They say they are done “accepting apologies in place of action.” This comes as the U.S. Forest Service, the agency that manages federal forests and firefighting on this side of the border, faces significant budget cuts under the Trump administration’s latest proposals.

Bobbie Scopa fought fire for 45 years. She started as a seasonal firefighter in 1974 and finished as an operations section chief: the person on a major fire who decides where the crews go, and where nobody goes at all. She’s the author of “Both Sides of the Fire Line,” and she hosts the podcast Bobbie on Fire. 

She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to explain why these fires are harder to stop than they used to be, and why she thinks Americans are asking the wrong question about them.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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